I have just escaped the premature end of my life because of failure at a major teaching hospital to classify my cardiac condition as urgent. By the time I fought my way on the the operating schedule using all the argument possible to deaf ears, my wife reached out to the CEO of the hospital and he requested a top cardiologist to intervene and immediately take care of me.

It turned out that my main coronary artery had a 99.99% complete block. I was awake and the Cardiologist showed me the XRay screen and pointed out the blockade with a fine hair's width of remaining patency. He fired a series of requests for a sequence of numbered dilators, probes and balloons and in 2 minutes a stent had been placed to push the plaque to one side and now I had the vessels of an 18 year old once more!

He told me I wouldn't have survived well waiting any longer and probably might not have made it to the "add-on position the resident and fellow had assigned me for the end of the day!

This episode has forced me to rethink some of my guides. I had until then, three mottos all my life:

Meaning, despite how much talent, wealth, education and humor we have, be considerate and generous to everone else. IOW, "Love your neighbor as yourself!"

That set of aphorisms has been useful to me. However now I must add a 4th most critical rule for myself:

4. Be one's own unrelenting advocate and don't conpromise or give up on fighting for yourself. I was conflicted about pushing myself forward. But I was not self- protective and it nearly cost me my life!

The last is a good lesson, having been good to everyone else, one has a duty to save oneself too!

Thank goodness It turned out well!

In my situation, any other person without my medical knowledge and powerful connections would have been dead!

So don't rely on the "system" and accept what's served if it is merely "good enough". If you think it puts yourself or your loved ones at risk, ignore the facade of grace and good manners and circumvent the blocks to getting to those who can help you!

"Good manners", graciousness and a smile can be the patina covering disinterest and dismissal!

Our purpose is getting to an impressive photograph. So we encourage browsing and then feedback. Consider a link to your galleries annotated, C&C welcomed. Images posted within OPF are assumed to be for Comment & Critique, unless otherwise designated.

I will take it easy over the weekend and then hire one of my models as as a production assistant and driver and then Tuesday or Wednesday get back to finishing the massive 13,000 lb sculpture I am making of a sailboat with a "Puff of Wind" :no matter which way the wind blows, if one masters the sails, one can overcome its direction and Journey to one's destination!

I have delivered the massive base. Now I have to complete the process and see it installed!

There are not enough hours in a day! However, now I will expand my team and no longer pretend I am a steel worker!

OPF, that is the folk here are a major treasure for us all to enjoy together. I value this bond even more today. Thanks for every sharing of a captured pose, smile, reflection and shadow, private moment and grand scene.

We are not going away, just after that frightening "tap on the window" by a fellow with a sickle and withered finger! I double my commitment here and we will continue traveling together in this tour bus!

Our purpose is getting to an impressive photograph. So we encourage browsing and then feedback. Consider a link to your galleries annotated, C&C welcomed. Images posted within OPF are assumed to be for Comment & Critique, unless otherwise designated.

Glad you received the medical expertise that was required. I hope that you are on the mend and remember that there is no point in rushing through life. Just do what is in front of you and don't worry about the rest. But please delegate the work to others so that you can concentrate your efforts on the things you need to. Multi tasking is something you do on a computer.

Asher,
my good friend!
Be good to us, again :
Take it easy, take care, there’s no (more) reason to rush. Take your time!
And enjoy every single minute : )

Thanks Nicolas for the work in designing the forum and helping make a beautiful refuge for the photographer on a journey!

I will now have an assistant and continue my endeavors but less recklessly! My one thought at the end of the procedure was that I would be able to tell new stories about "Grandpa Frog" on "Frog Island"!

Two of the grandkids came here and filmed each other giving an address on "What makes a good President of the USA". It was hilarious!

Yes, I will enjoy every moment like this and all the pictures posted here!

Our purpose is getting to an impressive photograph. So we encourage browsing and then feedback. Consider a link to your galleries annotated, C&C welcomed. Images posted within OPF are assumed to be for Comment & Critique, unless otherwise designated.

I am so grateful that the possible mortal outcome of this event was averted.

Many aspects of your story ring very true to me and Carla (although fortunately none of our contexts have been nearly so urgent or critical). Your point about having to advocate for your own needs is very important. "If I am not for me, who will be?"

Which is not at all to denigrate the critical role Wendy played in this adventure! (She is, after all, a component of "you".)

You also illuminate one of our own aphorisms of modern times: be sure you know how to contact the CEO of the hospital. And, perhaps most frightening of all, " 'Good manners', graciousness and a smile can be the patina covering disinterest and dismissal!"

Again, Carla and I are so grateful that you have, to use that old saw, "cheated death again".

************

On a related front:

Carla is out of town at the annual Red Hat Convention, and last night, our good neighbors were kind enough to invite me to their home for dinner. There was a sudden rain storm (this is monsoon season here in Alamogordo - after all, we have to get our expected 5.5 inches of annual rain somehow) so I didn't go home quite as soon as I otherwise might have. So we had an enjoyable evening of conversation on many topics.

She is a retired Registered Nurse, and he, a rocket technologist during much of his career, had, during part of his life ("when the rocket business was slow"), also had become a Registered Nurse. He is, like myself, a diabetic.

One topic that came up is that, although he for many years had been diagnosed with Type 2 Diabetes, a recent battery of tests, brought about by anomalies in how he was responding to his insulin regimen, concluded that in fact his affliction is Type 1 Diabetes!

And of course there were so many stories about how we all had to really intervene, with physicians, and auto mechanics, and plumbers, and such to avert disturbing, and potentially fatal, "misdirection" of efforts. She brought up the disturbing fact of the large number of deaths caused by "medical error".

Yes, I will enjoy every moment like this and all the pictures posted here!

Asher

Then, my friend, let me post here for you this one, it has in the context some relations…
After the night, comes the day and the light.
But during the night, one can see some lights…
Here one can see boats lights, on top of masts, to show their presence in the dark when they are anchored off marinas or harbors.
Like giant candles!
Also, you might want to add this light on top of the mast of your sculpture, so it will be at night a recognizable point for those who are lost in the darkness…

Then, my friend, let me post here for you this one, it has in the context some relations…
After the night, comes the day and the light.
But during the night, one can see some lights…
Here one can see boats lights, on top of masts, to show their presence in the dark when they are anchored off marinas or harbors.
Like giant candles!
Also, you might want to add this light on top of the mast of your sculpture, so it will be at night a recognizable point for those who are lost in the darkness…

Shot in Summer 2014 in Porquerolles (an island South of France)

Wonderful scene, Nicolas! The motif of cables that unites the shape of each boat, is well represented in my sculpture. The top of the single vertical mast has a tapering cone with two threaded holes for flying a narrow pendant banner. However, there is no light on the top as I didn't realize that! I could machine a hole at the top and insert a light. I also have a diagonal gaff mast. Are there ever lights at the end of that too?

If you have a catalog reference then I will try to find an LED equivalent that fits in with the esthetics. Thank you, already for your yacht pictures that all inspired me to make my major sculpture. I also owe to you the protective feature in high winds of a beating assembly to rotate and better align the sail in a dangerous wind. That feature, I will tell you took 6 months of engineering and Finite Element Analysis and so many subtle design decisions as a result. Right now, the sculpture should align with the wind, but even if the bearings are jammed, the boat is stable up to 160 mph and will not topple until approx 196.5 mph, at which time the neighboring roofs will have been long gone!

Our purpose is getting to an impressive photograph. So we encourage browsing and then feedback. Consider a link to your galleries annotated, C&C welcomed. Images posted within OPF are assumed to be for Comment & Critique, unless otherwise designated.

They have a Fresnel lens so they can be seen from far for less energy (like in light house)
They are fitted on top of mast, some times on a short pole (1 or 2 feet high)
Never on boom or gaff.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Asher Kelman

Thank you, already for your yacht pictures that all inspired me to make my major sculpture. I also owe to you the protective feature in high winds of a beating assembly to rotate and better align the sail in a dangerous wind. That feature, I will tell you took 6 months of engineering and Finite Element Analysis and so many subtle design decisions as a result. Right now, the sculpture should align with the wind, but even if the bearings are jammed, the boat is stable up to 160 mph and will not topple until approx 196.5 mph, at which time the neighboring roofs will have been long gone!

They have a Fresnel lens so they can be seen from far for less energy (like in light house)
They are fitted on top of mast, some times on a short pole (1 or 2 feet high)
Never on boom or gaff.

I will find the lights and see which kind can fit the design of the top of the pole! For daytime, the top of the mast is emphasized by the charcoal color of the cone with a rounded top. I just have to bring power up to that point!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nicolas Claris

196.5 mph is a lot! but also not only the wind might be dangerous, but vibrations too (due to wind and gusts)…

Well, we are very sure of 100 mph, confident of 160 mph and at 196.5 MPH, the weighted base can no longer prevent the moment caused by the wind on the massive sail from pushing the sculpture over, as it is not bolted to the concrete of the ground in the sculpture garden! That would cancel the contractors warranty for the parking structure hidden underneath the sculpture garden!

I will check the mathematics to see if we went beyond strain to look at harmonics and vibrations in the FEA. Thanks for that useful comment!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nicolas Claris

Below another anchorage view (in Greece) with long exposure…

Interesting that the horizontal trails of the mast top lights provide an account of the movement of the boats as they rock and drift in their moorings!

Our purpose is getting to an impressive photograph. So we encourage browsing and then feedback. Consider a link to your galleries annotated, C&C welcomed. Images posted within OPF are assumed to be for Comment & Critique, unless otherwise designated.

__________________I do not call myself an artist, I just try to capture what I see.
If you need many words to describe what your picture means, it doesn't speak enough for itself.
my photos on flickr - here is the portion posted in OPF.

I agree 100% on "Be nice to the others in the tour bus!" - the journey might be hard for some, but this way it becomes a bit nicer.

Michael,

I always follow that rule! I was "nice to the other people in the tour bus". I must admit, that, after waiting two hours outside the emergency room, I was finally admitted to a "Dante's Inferno" scene, packed with suffering people, men, women and even children, some demented or crying in pain. It was so overcrowded with the more seriously ill patients on guerneys in the hallways as all the exam rooms were full! I said to my wife, "I feel guilty being here as all these people seem to be far worse than I am. When I finally saw a cardiac Fellow he said, No, Asher, you are the most critical patient here. Still he did not put me on the schedule for cathetization - as it was already full and refused to open the catheter lab for the evening - as one needed the "ST segment" of the EKG to be raised! "Catch 22"!!

Here, Michael, this tranquility you share, is a gift from the Angels. It is therapeutic! I am such an avid observer of boats now. They are in themselves beautiful creatures but in addition represents each person's personal and family "Odyssey"!

Boats are so well designed. There are simply brilliant devices like ratchets and turnbuckles and sails that drop into the boom and roll up automatically!

Our purpose is getting to an impressive photograph. So we encourage browsing and then feedback. Consider a link to your galleries annotated, C&C welcomed. Images posted within OPF are assumed to be for Comment & Critique, unless otherwise designated.

Firstly, let me congratulate you on your premonition.
Predicting one's demise is reasonable ability at the best of times but knowing that it might have come early is downright miraculous.
It will be Saint Asher from here on in.

I do wonder, though, if saving one's life is the same as preventing one's death. It seems that the death is simply postponed and the life continues for a bit longer, duration indeterminate.

Nevertheless, we are delighted to have you tag along for a while. Well, I am, at least. There are some who may not agree. The problem with longevity is that there is ample time to accumulate enemies.
It's a good thing wishing is as ineffective as praying, erstwhile those pleading for your end might have been more effective than those praying for your recovery.

Be aware also that such events also create widowers. Statistically, unless your wife is the same age as your muses, she should take her own advice and head for the angiogram as well.

I have just escaped the premature end of my life because of failure at a major teaching hospital to classify my cardiac condition as urgent. By the time I fought my way on the the operating schedule using all the argument possible to deaf ears, my wife reached out to the CEO of the hospital and he requested a top cardiologist to intervene and immediately take care of me.

It turned out that my main coronary artery had a 99.99% complete block. I was awake and the Cardiologist showed me the XRay screen and pointed out the blockade with a fine hair's width of remaining patency. He fired a series of requests for a sequence of numbered dilators, probes and balloons and in 2 minutes a stent had been placed to push the plaque to one side and now I had the vessels of an 18 year old once more!

He told me I wouldn't have survived well waiting any longer and probably might not have made it to the "add-on position the resident and fellow had assigned me for the end of the day!

This episode has forced me to rethink some of my guides. I had until then, three mottos all my life:

Meaning, despite how much talent, wealth, education and humor we have, be considerate and generous to everone else. IOW, "Love your neighbor as yourself!"

That set of aphorisms has been useful to me. However now I must add a 4th most critical rule for myself:

4. Be one's own unrelenting advocate and don't conpromise or give up on fighting for yourself. I was conflicted about pushing myself forward. But I was not self- protective and it nearly cost me my life!

The last is a good lesson, having been good to everyone else, one has a duty to save oneself too!

Thank goodness It turned out well!

In my situation, any other person without my medical knowledge and powerful connections would have been dead!

So don't rely on the "system" and accept what's served if it is merely "good enough". If you think it puts yourself or your loved ones at risk, ignore the facade of grace and good manners and circumvent the blocks to getting to those who can help you!

"Good manners", graciousness and a smile can be the patina covering disinterest and dismissal!

This is a lesson to learn!

Asher

Surgeons are such drama queens.
Everything is life and death and they have the hand of their deity.

At your age, Ash, it's just patchwork.

As for the rules of life, I have my own thanks.
When death comes, greet it with a smile.

Our purpose is getting to an impressive photograph. So we encourage browsing and then feedback. Consider a link to your galleries annotated, C&C welcomed. Images posted within OPF are assumed to be for Comment & Critique, unless otherwise designated.

Man, Asher, that was a close one! Glad you were able to dodge this bullet. We lucky ones reach a stage where we whistle past the graveyard a bit louder with every passing year. Staying aware is important, as is staying fully involved with the world.

__________________
Tom Robbins
West of Lake Michigan, East of Mississippi River

Man, Asher, that was a close one! Glad you were able to dodge this bullet. We lucky ones reach a stage where we whistle past the graveyard a bit louder with every passing year. Staying aware is important, as is staying fully involved with the world.

........and Tom, holding one's camera as a lantern to reveal the world over which we have dominion!

Our purpose is getting to an impressive photograph. So we encourage browsing and then feedback. Consider a link to your galleries annotated, C&C welcomed. Images posted within OPF are assumed to be for Comment & Critique, unless otherwise designated.

When I came here this evening, the last thing I was expecting was to read this thread. My heart just about crumbled. So close, so close.. and lots of what ifs. I'm so glad that they fixed you and you have not died. Thank goodness for having a wife to fight with you to not allow them to shorten your time.

and mostly, I realized how much you mean to me. Somewhere through the years,you have become my friend. Of course, I'm sure we all feel the same it is just that what happened made it so crystal clear to me. The tears that welled up and that I have shed that could have been for loss, are instead that you are good and well and ready for many more years to come.

Rest and take care of yourself. Get the people you need to help as I want to see that sculpture of yours.. we've all been waiting. I know it will be fantastic, because you are. You mean a lot to me and of course, to everyone here. You are what I call a Mensch, full of integrity and honor.

Dearest Asher,
..........and mostly, I realized how much you mean to me. Somewhere through the years,you have become my friend. Of course, I'm sure we all feel the same it is just that what happened made it so crystal clear to me. The tears that welled up and that I have shed that could have been for loss, are instead that you are good and well and ready for many more years to come.

Maggie,

Your heartfelt sentiments are treasured by me and my family. Consider the respect, mutual guidance, sharing, appreciation, and dignity that you and others here have invested in this special forum. It is this mutuality and community feeling and total lack of arrogance that sustains our group. We do need many more members and I will work on this!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Maggie Terlecki

Rest and take care of yourself. Get the people you need to help as I want to see that sculpture of yours.. we've all been waiting.

I have now a production assistant and plan to complete all the components in the next 2 weeks and move to planning the rigging and actual installation. It's no mean feat delivering a 13,000 lb structure that has to withstand winds of over 100 mph and yet is not fixed to the underlying concrete!

Imagine raising a 2 ton boat and sails 12 ft above a supporting column when the boat has an angle of15 degrees to port side and the stern is down by 5 degrees too!

I will start sharing pictures shortly!

Thanks for following my enterprise, even though it is not photography. But I admit that the photographic and passionate work of Nicolas with his grand yachts inspired me!

Our purpose is getting to an impressive photograph. So we encourage browsing and then feedback. Consider a link to your galleries annotated, C&C welcomed. Images posted within OPF are assumed to be for Comment & Critique, unless otherwise designated.

So glad you were were own advocate, Asher, scary though it must have been. Add to your list of your guidelines one overlooked because it's so much part of your nature. That guideline is to encourage and support other passengers on the tourbus to do and be their best, too - just as you do, all the time. That's so much more important than simply being nice to them other and a quality acknowledged and appreciated by everyone here at OPFI. You are an inspiration to us all. Mike.

So glad you were were own advocate, Asher, scary though it must have been. Add to your list of your guidelines one overlooked because it's so much part of your nature. That guideline is to encourage and support other passengers on the tourbus to do and be their best, too - just as you do, all the time. That's so much more important than simply being nice to them other and a quality acknowledged and appreciated by everyone here at OPFI. You are an inspiration to us all. Mike.

Thanks Mike!

I am reminded of the Joni Mitchell song, "All I really want": All I really want of love to do is to bring out the best in me and you too"

Our purpose is getting to an impressive photograph. So we encourage browsing and then feedback. Consider a link to your galleries annotated, C&C welcomed. Images posted within OPF are assumed to be for Comment & Critique, unless otherwise designated.